Tony Stark's Crippling Addiction
by Allen Pierce
Summary: "We create our own demons." Bruce didn't fully understand what Tony meant by that before, but the wisdom of his words becomes apparent as he reveals more about what happened after New York City, and more about himself. A post-Iron Man 3 one-shot.


_Fair warning: Major _Iron Man 3_ spoilers ahead. That should go without saying, but if you haven't seen it yet, you should probably go do that first._

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**Tony Stark's Crippling Addiction**

Tony looked over at Bruce and wondered where to start with what he had to say. There was no easy way to begin a conversation like this; it would be neither graceful nor pleasant, but he knew it was for the best. Someone had to know.

"So, uh, hey, Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

It wasn't getting any easier.

"You, uh, remember when I told you about the whole Extremis thing and the truth about the Mandarin?"

"You mean when I fell asleep?"

"Yeah, but I told you again later."

"Yes, Tony, I remember."

"Well, I didn't tell you the whole truth. I mean, I did as far as The Mandarin was concerned, but—uh, I'm just gonna start over:

"Okay, I guess the best place to start would be right after New York. Tell me, what did you think about that shawarma place we went to?"

Bruce wasn't sure what the question had to do with the rest of Tony's story, but answered: "Well, I had eaten shawarma before and I thought the place was about average. I seem to recall you being pretty disappointed, though. I mean, not like you hated it or anything. Just . . . indifferent."

"I was. At first."

"At first?"

"Yeah, at first. But later that night, I couldn't go to sleep. It was like I physically needed to get more shawarma."

"And?"

"Well, it was the middle of the night. You'd think it'd be easy enough to find a place that sells shawarma at 4 a.m. in New York, but it wasn't. Maybe they were all under repair after the aliens wrecked everything, but long story short, I had to drive a long way to get somewhere that was selling shawarma, and I never wanted to worry about that ever again. And that's the real reason I started building so many suits."

Bruce nodded in agreement before it really sunk in.

"Wait, what?"

"Well, all my suits were either back in Malibu or out of commission. I wanted to make sure that would never be an issue ever again. That's also why I designed them to come back to me whenever I needed them."

"Well, it seems like everything worked out fine. I mean, the extra suits came in handy when it came time to stop Killian, right?"

"It gets worse. All of those times that I said I was having a panic attack over New York, it was really just shawarma withdrawal. Also, I was using the suits to hide all of my used up shawarma wrappers. I'd just stuff one full until I had to build another. You know, so Pepper wouldn't find out."

"Why not just burn them, or throw them away?"

"I did that at first, but after a while, just eating the shawarma wasn't good enough. The only way I could get any sleep was if I held an old shawarma wrapper to my nose and huffed it."

"I'm still relatively sure you could have found another place to hide them."

"Look, I was staying awake for weeks at a time all hopped up on shawarma, so I'm sorry if my thought process wasn't completely rational."

"Okay, I'm sorry. Go on."

"Alright." Tony was starting to feel better, getting it all off his chest, but he knew the worst was still in front of him. "Well, the end of the story was true, with me blowing up all of the suits for Pepper. But I left out the part where I jumped into the ocean as soon as she wasn't looking to grab all the old shawarma wrappers that fell out of the suits on their way to the fight."

"How did you ever explain that to her?"

"I just told her it was more PTSD. She bought it, but now I'm feeling kind of guilty."

"Okay, that's . . . pretty bad. Continue."

"Well, I couldn't hide the wrappers in my suits anymore. And later, I got all that shrapnel removed from my chest and let them sew it up where the electromagnet used to go."

"I remember, we all visited you in the hospital."

"And I really appreciated that. But in reality, that was all a ploy. Right before they sewed me up, I took an old hunk of shawarma meat and stuffed it down in the hole." After a brief pause, he added, "I'm actually pretty sure it's slowly killing me from the inside out."

Bruce opened his mouth and tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come.

"It made sense at the time. I mean, I would eat and eat and eat, and I'd feel good for a while. It just seemed such a shame to lose it to the process of digestion. I needed a way to keep the shawarma inside me, permanently."

"Even in death?"

"Damn it Bruce, I'm being totally serious! This isn't the time for jokes!"

Bruce never thought he would hear Tony say _that_. He realized just how bad things must be.

"Is that the worst of it? Because I'm sure you could get it removed."

"Yes."

He looked everywhere but Bruce's face.

"Well, no," he finally said. "I kind of also broke Loki out of prison to ask him where he got that mind control scepter from."

"Wh—how? How the hell did you even get to Asgard?"

"It wasn't easy. Long story short, I made a deal with this guy named Thanos and told him I would do whatever he wanted for one of those scepters, and he offered to just cut out the middle man and give me a never-ending supply of shawarma."

"Wait, what were you going to do with a mind control—"

"All I had to do in exchange was promise to kill all of you guys. Once I got the shawarma, though, it was like I couldn't enjoy it anymore, knowing what I had done. I'm really really sorry. Honest," Tony said, looking down and twiddling his thumbs.

Bruce called upon every ounce of self-control to maintain his composure and asked one question:

"Where is all the shawarma?"

"Oh, Thanos gave me a magic fridge that refills with the stuff every day. It's in my basement."

Tony began to reminisce, back to when he had just gotten the fridge. For a few days, he'd eat his fill and that was that. Before long, he started getting naked and rolling around in it, stepping on it for fun and feeling it squish between his toes, using the tahini and humus to pleasure himself. Then still eating it. Whenever he made love to Pepper, the only way he could maintain an erection was with a big mouthful of shawarma.

He bashfully opened his eyes to find that Bruce had turned into the Hulk. In one swift motion, he was torn in half.

As the Hulk stood there, looking at the remains of this man he could no longer recognize, let alone call a "friend," he shed a single tear.


End file.
